Post navigation

Old and new: Modern Ukraine and the Trypilian culture

The Houston Museum of Natural Science is hosting two exhibits coming from Ukraine, opening on May 27 and June 5. One of these covers the archaeology and history of the country. The second exhibit focuses on icons and religious regalia from the 11th to the 19th centuries. This blog starts with a brief introduction to modern Ukraine. Next we will cover the earliest known Ukrainian culture: the Trypilian. Later blogs will cover more recent aspects of Ukrainian history.

Modern UkraineUkraine is located in Eastern Europe. Slightly smaller in size than Texas, Ukraine is the largest country wholly in Europe.

Ukraine is one of Europe’s youngest nations. On August 24th this year, the country will celebrate its independence. It so happens that this year, 2011, will mark the 20th anniversary of that event.

The city of Kyiv, also known to us as Kiev, is the capital. Tradition has it that Kyiv was founded by four Viking siblings in the late 9th century, an event associated with Viking migration through the area on their way to the Black Sea and areas beyond. Even though more than 1000 years separate us from the founding of Kyiv, we need to go back many more millennia to reach the period the Trypilian culture flourished.

There are differences in opinion (to put it diplomatically) with regards to the origin of this phenomenon. Russian scholars placed the origin in the area between the Bug and Dnieper Rivers and then suggested it moved westwards. Romanian scholars, on the other hand, see it exactly the opposite way: they locate the origin of the culture in Moldova. Later they see markers of the culture appear in Ukraine and Romania (Garašanin 1994: 534).

Recent DNA analysis carried out on human remains retrieved from the Verteba cave in Western Ukraine revealed that the ancestors of some of these individuals likely arrived in Europe in the Pleistocene and that they survived locally through the last Ice Age. The ancestors of the remaining individuals tested are identified as people associated with the expansion of Neolithic farming out of the Near East. Based on this extremely small sample, one could tentatively argue that the Trypilians had roots both in Pleistocene Europe as well as the Near East.

Ukrainian and Romanian scholars, working on the Trypilian and Cucuteni aspects of the culture respectively, came up with their own chronology. It was only after the data started being published that the realization grew in both countries that they both were dealing with the same culture. That insight, however, did not result in a universally agreed upon chronology. Instead, we are faced with two different sets of dates, an unfortunate and confusing situation.

As one archaeologist put it (Anthony 2007: 164):

“Romanian archaeologists use the name Cucuteni and Ukrainians use Tripolye, each with its own system of internal chronological divisions, so we must use cumbersome labels like Pre-Cucuteni III/Tripolye A to refer to a single prehistoric culture. There is a Borges-like dreaminess to the Cucuteni pottery sequence: one phase (Cucuteni C) is not a phase at all but rather a type of pottery probably made outside the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture; another phase (Cucuteni A1) was defined before it was found, and never was found; still another (Cucuteni A5) was created in 1963 as a challenge for future scholars, and is now largely forgotten; and the whole sequence was first defined on the assumption, later proved wrong, that the Cucuteni A phase was the oldest, so later archaeologists had to invent the Pre-Cucuteni phases I, II, and III, one of which (Pre-Cucuteni I) might not exist. The positive side of this obsession with pottery types is that the pottery is known and studied in minute detail.”

Trypilian dwellings are known through excavations and ancient ceramic models. The layout of these houses seems to have followed a certain blueprint. A hearth was placed immediately inside the door; a row of storage vessels was arranged against the opposite wall. At the far end of the room lay a small platform, thought to have served some ceremonial function. Smoke was vented through an opening in the ceiling.

The majority of archaeologists today believe that the most typical Trypilian dwellings were early timber frame buildings with wooden walls and ceilings plastered with clay. The houses had a thatch roof. Archaeologists have found clay wall fragments, still sporting imprints of human fingers left on walls during daubing.

Some Trypilian structures had two floors, as indicated by ceramic models. The second floor, with its hearth, was used for living while the first floor was used for storage, and as animal shelter. In this way the household complexes of the early period in Trypillia were kept warm. Some sources suggest that there might have three story houses in the larger communities.

Not all structures found at Trypilian sites were dwellings. At the site of Talianki, for example, archaeologists identified three storage structures. Ceramic workshops were also excavated. These were situated close to dwellings but were differentiated as separate work places.

Map identifying the Cherkassy region in modern Ukraine,
home of all known giant Trypilian settlements.

These large Trypilian communities existed toward the end of the culture (between 3200 – 2700 BC). None of them were contemporary with each other, rather what we are looking at is a sequence of settlements. It appears that they were abandoned every 60 to 80 years or so.

The abandonment of the settlements involved the intentional use of fire. Archaeologists have found evidence of high sustained temperatures during these acts of destruction; they have inferred from this that additional combustible material was placed inside the buildings to maintain the fires.

There was no public architecture in these communities. Archaeologists assume that this “lack of public infrastructure within the settlements forced the Trypilians to include all aspects of everyday life in their own private premises.” A lack of differentiation in architecture, with only dwellings and storage places identified, reflects a lack of social stratification, according to some researchers. No palaces? No rulers, is the thinking in this case. If this is confirmed by additional discoveries in the future, this would make the Trypilian culture stand out when compared to other cultures in the region during the mid fifth millennium BC. In neighboring Bulgaria, for example, grave goods found in 310 graves in the Varna cemetery clearly showed the presence of political rank. Dating to about 4500 BC, the cemetery is the oldest known yet where humans were buried with golden ornaments.

Unfortunately, the sample of Trypilian burials is limited in number. Most date to the between 3400 – 2750 BC. As far as earlier periods go, it appears that the Trypilians disposed of their dead in an archeologically untraceable manner.

Subsistence: what was on their plate?

Archaeological research at several Trypilian settlements has revealed the subsistence strategies of these early Ukrainians. With regard to the site of Maidanets’ke, archaeologists tell us:

“Emmer and spelt were the most common cereals recovered; barley and peas were also recovered in one house. Cattle (35% of domesticates) were the most important source of meat, with pig (27%) and sheep (26%) a secondary sources; the remaining 11% was equally divided between dogs and horses. About 15% of the animals were red deer, wild boar, bison, hare and birds.” (Anthony 2007: 495, n. 19).

Findings such as these clearly tell us that the introduction of agriculture and animal domestication did not mean the immediate end to hunting and gathering. Rather, people seem to have pursued a strategy in which they took advantage of all available resources.

Technological achievements

The Trypilians bridge the divide between the last phase of the Stone Age and the beginnings of the Copper Age. This period sees the introduction of agriculture into the region, marking a shift in the subsistence strategy for the locals away from nomadic hunting and gathering to a more sedentary way of life.

Greater sedentism, or staying put in one place for extended periods of time, became possible because of agriculture and animal husbandry. Both of these milestones in human development, achieved outside of Europe, permit, even force, people to stay on one place. This greater permanency in residency leads to more permanent architecture as well as the manufacture of items such as pottery that would be deemed unwieldy, and too heavy by hunter gatherers.

The Trypilian culture is known for a variety of decorated pottery as well as anthropomorphic and zoomorphic ceramic figurines.

The Trypilians excelled in making ceramics. Some of their pots were large storage vessels, decorated with painted or incised geometric designs. They have also left us with countless ceramic models of homes, some showing the interior, some showing what might have been “row houses” typical of their larger settlements.

Figurines in the shape of animals and humans are abundant. Some of the animal figurines depict cattle and are equipped with wheels. The female form is so abundant that anthropologists at one point used them to posit the existence of a goddess cult, a line of thinking not always well received by other anthropologists. Other ceramics include models of houses.

The material record retrieved from Trypilian sites does not contain easily recognizable signs of social stratification. We do not have evidence of palaces in which rulers would have lived, nor do we have any signs of organized religion practiced in public spaces such as temples.

There is however, strong evidence that the Trypilians had a sense of community and were able to organize themselves. The periodic resettlement required strong community organization utilizing the collective efforts of all its members. Burning down an entire community, especially a settlement with hundreds if not thousands of houses was not an easy task. Moving to a new location and rebuilding must have involved across the board decision making and intense collaboration among all members of society.

Giant settlements: can we call them cities?

The giant Trypilian settlements, such as Maidanets’ke, pre-date the first Mesopotamian cities by about 1000 years. However tempting it may be, however, to refer to these Trypilian settlements as “cities,” archaeologists have refrained from doing so. What appears lacking from the Trypilian communities is public architecture (palaces, temples, markets) that define what we would call a city. Instead we find a huge number of domestic dwellings, closely packed together along what might have been pathways, or streets. They compactness of the settlement, combined with the sheer number of inhabitants would have increased security.

Rise of civilizations elsewhere

Outside Europe, we see the rise of civilization starting in places like Çatalhöyük, in Central Anatolia, present-day Turkey, around 7000 BC. The site of Tell Halaf, in eastern Anatolia, began around 6000 BC. The Ubaid culture originated in Southern Iraq around 6200 BC.

Within Europe’s borders, we do not know of any settlements this size this early.

* * *

I will end with this thought. The Trypilian culture in the Ukraine presents us with an interesting juxtaposition: one of Europe’s youngest nations was once home to one of Europe’s oldest civilization. Now on display at a museum near you.

Sources:

Anthony, David W.
2007 The Horse, the Wheel and Language. How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the Modern World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Garašanin, Milutin
1994 The Balkan Peninsula and South-East Europe during the Neolithic. In S.J. de Laet, ed., History of Humanity, Vol. 6, pp. 527 – 539. UNESCO, Paris and London.

About Dirk

As curator of anthropology, Dirk is responsible for the museum’s artifact collection and is involved in its temporary and permanent anthropology exhibits.
Dirk is an expert in human cultures; he curates the Museum’s Hall of the Americas and specializes in native American cultures like the Aztec and Maya.

2 thoughts on “Old and new: Modern Ukraine and the Trypilian culture”

The Ukrainian American community of Houston appreciates the time you took to research and write about Ukraine’s 6000 year history.
In particular, Ukrainian Americans were very pleased with the title of the exhibit referring to Ukraine because many people still identify Ukraine as Russia even after it declared its independence from the rule and domination of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
During the last century, Ukraine was ruled for 70 years by brutal dictators like Lenin and Stalin and Ukrainian history was suppressed.
One of the resent historical events was Holodomor. This event killed over 7,000,000 Ukrainians by starvation during 1932-1933 while Ukraine was then the bread basket of Europe. My mother lost half of her family due to this holocaust.

Both exhibits at the HMNS are a great effort to bring to the forefront Ukraine’s history and national identity as a independent nation in Texas and the USA. Ukraine’s wants to increase trade and commerce with the USA and, by doing so, increase the wellbeing of both nations. The Museum’s exhibit is a great lesson in history and an excellent example of what Ukraine, with a population of about 50,000,000 people, has to offer to the world.
Greg Buchai
Honorary Consul of Ukraine.

Thank you for your kind words. We are proud to present these two exhibits on Ukraine. They dovetail nicely, with one exhibit picking up the thread where the other one stops. I have enjoyed learning about Ukraine’s long prehistoric past; in fact, I am still reading. When I walk through the exhibit on Ukrainian archaeology, I like to tell visitors that they are looking at objects from one of Europe’s oldest civilizations coming from one of Europe’s youngest nations.

We are all aware of the deeply sad episodes in your more recent history. I hope that by learning about other cultures and by appreciating their diversity and contributions, we will be able to avoid such tragedies in the future. Ukraine today is a vibrant and proud nation and we are grateful to be given the opportunity to showcase your culture. I know there is a lot more to share and tell. I hope that in the near future we will be able to bring more of Ukraine’s heritage to Texas.